KIRKLEES Council leader Mehboob Khan has been meddling in public information.

Everyone has the right to request information held by public sector organisations under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act.

But the Examiner can exclusively reveal that Clr Khan has been amending the information which has been prepared ready to send out to people.

Former council leader Kath Pinnock has described his actions as “disturbing”.

The Lib Dem leader said: “The whole purpose of Freedom of Information requests is to make sure that the public know how their money is being spent. It is taxpayers’ hard-earned cash. The council leader should know what information is going into the public domain but there should be no interference with it.”

But Clr Khan has denied doing anything wrong and says he has merely been trying to put things into “context” and “improve” the information sent back to applicants.

The Examiner was able to get hold of emails sent between Clr Khan and Freedom of Information officers at Kirklees Council. In the emails printed below, Clr Khan can clearly be seen intervening in FOI responses and preventing information from being sent out.

We thought seeing as Clr Khan had been amending information Examiner readers and the rest of the public had a right to see, then the readers should tell us exactly what they thought of his actions. Read the rest of the story andl et us know: Email us at newsdesk@examiner.co.uk, call us on 01484 437728 or write to us at Huddersfield Examiner, Queen Street South, Huddersfield HD1 3DU.

What happened on a question about council tax

EXAMINER reporter Katie Grant asked the Freedom of Information service how much council tax is currently owed by people living in Kirklees – including all overdue payments.

The FOI officer prepared a full response using information from the Revenues and Benefits service dating back to 1993 which was sent to Clr Khan.

But Clr Khan replied: "This is not going out. Who prepared the response?"

A new response was prepared which only showed figures for the financial year 2010/11 – a financial year that still has not finished.

What happened when a question was asked about Christmas

AN applicant asked how much money was in the Kirklees Council’s budget to go towards Christmas celebrations in 2010 and an FOI officer came up with an amount in pounds which Clr Khan told them not to send.

Clr Khan told the information officer: "The council doesn’t specifically celebrate Christmas – the council promotes the town and village centres."

Clr Khan also asked whether or not the request had come from "someone local" and whether or not they had chased their request up.

The information officer told him who the request was from and that the response was overdue but it had not been chased, adding: "We do not have an exemption that would justify us in withholding the information."

Clr Khan then replied: "The response is incorrect and should not be released."

What happened when a question was asked about celebrities used by the council

An FOI officer told Clr Khan they had received three requests from different media organisations asking for information about when the council has hired celebrities for an event or function.

The officer prepared a response and a document with information to send back to the applicants.

But Clr Khan stopped it from going out. He said: "I suggest this response ... you will notice that it is different.

"I refer to your recent enquiry regarding the use of celebrities by the council. I have trawled our various services and unfortunately this information is not collated in one central place."

Turn to Page Three where we asked Clr Khan to explain his actions - and we've printed our conversation - in the interest of openness.

EXAMINER: @The information shows that you have amended nine responses to FOI requests. Do you think this conduct is appropriate for someone who heads the largest political group represented on the council and leads decision making, policy and budget setting?

CLR KHAN:@ I have amended one in every 100, just 1% of all the FOI responses received. This is not inappropriate as I have amended responses after speaking with senior officers where there was an improvement to the response that could be made or to ask for clarity or context. FOI is just one way people have of contacting the council and I have many more requests through traditional routes like surgeries or email and feel that, in these cases, I could add local knowledge or further clarity.

EXAMINER:@ Do you think your actions could be viewed by the public as being politically motivated and biased?

CLR KHAN:@ It is not about political motivation as FOI and the Act are not political – it is about providing the best possible responses. The Act leaves no room for political motivation or bias and if we refuse information we have to give an acceptable reason under the terms of the Act. Where the applicant thinks this is not the case there are appeal routes.

EXAMINER:@ Why did you stop the response prepared by the Freedom of Information officer about Council Tax from being sent back to the applicant and withhold information showing the whole picture?

CLR KHAN:@ This area falls into the portfolio shared by myself and Clr Shabir Pandor and we would want to see this kind of information as a matter of course. In terms of this particular response, after discussing with colleagues, I felt that the figures were less clear when they covered several years all the way back to 1993 and masked the real facts which was about how much as a council we had outstanding and how much we had collected in council tax in 2009/10. I think the picture given in the response was a clear one about the current situation.

EXAMINER:@ An FOI officer collated a response to send to media organisations who had asked for information about celebrities hired for events and functions and their fees. You replied: "I suggest this response ... you will notice that it is different. I refer to your recent enquiry regarding the use of celebrities by the council. I have trawled our various services and unfortunately this information is not collated in one central place." It is indeed a different response because this reply contains no information. Why did you seek to withhold this information?

CLR KHAN:@ Officers advised me, and continue to advise me, there is some argument over what constitutes a celebrity and how much is paid for people to perform such roles for councils. We have very few calls on celebrities in Kirklees and where this has happened in the past there is no one budget line or place to store that information. Thus the advice from officers is that it is not possible to accurately reply to the request.

EXAMINER: @ An applicant asked how much money was in the Kirklees Council budget to go towards Christmas celebrations in 2010 and an FOI officer came up with an amount in pounds which you told them not to send. Please explain why you blocked this information from going out and why it is important for you to know if the request is from someone local or not.

CLR KHAN:@ I encourage the council to celebrate Christmas whether that is by working on schemes to boost Christmas trade with shops and businesses – for example through the ice rink or investing in new Christmas lights – or whether that is dedicating an edition of Kirklees Together to Christmas activities. The request very simplistically asked how much do we budget for Christmas. We do not have a budget that says Christmas. Instead, during festive periods we choose to invest locally in our town and village centres to ensure that the conditions are created where businesses, shops and shoppers can all benefit. Money is pooled from ourselves and partner organisations. I have even dressed as Father Christmas myself to give our events a boost. In terms of asking whether the request comes from someone local that is legitimate if it means we can give a more detailed local response as opposed to a broader picture response when the request is part of a national survey.

EXAMINER:@ Do you continue to interfere in responses to FOI requests?

CLR KHAN:@ I would take issue with the word interfere and would point out that previous leaders and Cabinet members have been informed of FOI requests in the past. I am democratically elected to run the council with my Cabinet colleagues and we have a lot of local knowledge which can be used to improve or challenge our responses. Both officers and members work together on responses to FOIs. So far I have had input into one in 100 requests where I have sought to clarify the information or put the response into context to give the best response. This does not usually add in any delay but it does give better results. Only five out of 800 plus requests have been delayed because of this, but the most important thing was that the response was as full, helpful and accurate as possible.

Turn to Page Four to see what experts and other politicians think about the situation.

THE FOI row shows that Labour may have introduced this legislation with the best of intentions – but may now regret it.

One local government expert believes politicians may have concerns about the information going out which could reflect badly on them.

Dr Andrew Mycock, senior politics lecturer at Huddersfield University added: "It’s interesting to look at the justifications for doing this. To what extent are these being amended and if there are issues around it – political concerns or a sensitive nature of the information.

"I think there’s always going to be a difference between what politicians think should be in the public realm and what the general public thinks they have a right to have access to.

"If you go back to when Labour came into power there was this idea that government was closed and obstructive to citizens.

"The original FOI legislation is probably the most regretted legislation that they introduced.

"The reason why is that there’s a conflict between transparency and the implications that it has on governance and policy making."

"Also a lot of politicians – at both a local and national level – believe all the information should be transparent but they are and have proven to be increasingly guarded and selective because of concerns about political damage."

"I have always been totally in favour of Freedom of Information and still am in favour with everything being out in the open.

"The whole purpose of the FOI is to make sure that the public know how their money is being spent – it’s taxpayers hard-earned cash.

"There should be no interference at all. The only thing that I would say is that when officers give their responses is that there should be a bit of explanation around it if it’s needed. The council leader should know what information is going into the public domain but there should be no interference with it.

"And nothing should be stopped from going out at all.

"For example, there’s no reason why the figure for paying celebrities shouldn’t be out there.

"You could put it into context and say this is what Wakefield pays but you shouldn’t be preventing it from going out at all."

Kirklees Council director of resources David Smith said: "I know you think the people of Kirklees will be disappointed.

"I think if they have concerns at the responses there are mechanisms in place that mean if they are unhappy with the responses then they can challenge them. I’m content that we have a process and that there is a means of appeal. I’ve seen no evidence of interference. I have seen evidence of someone contributing to the process through questioning and challenging responses and we all welcome that."

Do you want to make your own Freedom of Information request? Turn to the next page to find out how.

The Government says everyone has the right to request information held by public sector organisations under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act.

This is what the Act states:

The FOI gives you the right to ask any public body for all the information they have on any subject you choose. Unless there’s a good reason, the organisation must provide the information within 20 working days. You can also ask for all the personal information they hold on you. Everyone can make a request for information – there are no restrictions on your age, nationality or where you live.

You can ask for any information at all – but some information might be withheld to protect various interests which are allowed for by the Act. If this is the case, the public authority must tell you why they have withheld information.

How to make an FOI request:

Write to (or email) the public body and include:

lYour name

l An address where you can be contacted

l A description of the information that you want

To help the public body find the information, give as much detail as possible. For example, say "minutes of the meeting where the decision to do X was made", rather than ‘everything you have about X.’

All public authorities must manage their information in accordance with a publication scheme which describes the "classes" or "kinds" of information held (such as minutes or reports).